Running Blind
by Rhubarb Nosegay
Summary: After the last book, Malfoy flees the country with his parents in an attempt to evade prosecution and possibly forge a new life in new surroundings. First fan fiction I've written, I guess I'll see how this goes.
1. Goodbye Malfoy Manor

Chapter 1: Goodbye Malfoy Manor

Draco stood still against the wall, watching his mother, waiting to see if she was going to take any sort of action at all. He guessed that she wouldn't, that at this moment she was finished, ready to surrender to whoever came searching here, whether it be an auror or a dementor or some vengeful mudblood or half-blood filled with the arrogance that accompanied victory.

The light was fading from the overcast sky, and the entire manor was submerged in a waning gray. If these were to be his last moments in the house, the mood fit. Gray light evoked gray memories, which made up the vast part of Draco's time at Malfoy Manor.

In a way, he was happy this was all coming to an end, so that he didn't have to come back to face the myriad of painful and unpleasant moments he had endured, especially over the last few years, especially since _he_ had come to stay here. Perhaps now that _he_ was finally dead, Draco would have been able to find some refuge within these walls that had housed one Malfoy or another going back nearly 1000 years, some remnant of the pride he had once felt whenever he spoke his name, his father's name.

But Draco did not really think that he would ever feel comfortable here, and he realized that his father probably never felt completely at home either. The Malfoy family name had always stood for purity and unstained power, but as the years wore on and even the most ancient and powerful families of the wizarding world had become diluted by muggle blood, they had had to take this cause more and more upon their own shoulders, until, eventually, the strain of it all became too unbearable to live with happily.

So Draco expected to be the last Malfoy to stand in this place and call it home, the last bearer of an almost great name.

He looked back to his mother, to that dead expression that had become all too familiar whenever things had gotten bad and she'd wanted to make the whole world go numb. It would be like a relief for her, whatever happened.

He didn't really think she would be harmed. She had told him, as they were coming back to this place, that she had reported to You-Know-Who that Potter was dead when he was really alive. Draco had been shocked at this news, and somewhat afraid, but somewhat strangely never angry at his mother. She had lied right to _his_ face, and now that had to be worth at least something, enough to save her skin. Without her, Potter might not even have won. Without her . . .

Draco turned at a noise outside the window. The light was very dim now, but he could still see a figure appear outside the gate, come walking up the pathway to the front door. This is it, he thought. Whatever happens happens, and I can't do anything about it. I'm in the hands of fate. This reassured him, and he leaned back a bit. He wouldn't have to make the pivotal choice, he could just float along with the current and see where he went.

The figure burst through the door and into the parlor. "We're leaving, get up." Draco Malfoy's father walked out of the shadows, his clothes tattered and his face bearing that familiar mark of extreme attentiveness under terrible exhaustion.

"You?" Draco sputtered.

His father eyed him quickly, before his eyes darted off in another direction, always watching his surroundings. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "Me. Your father."

"How did you escape?"

"It doesn't matter now. We have to go. They'll be here any moment, so we have to get a move on, get out of the country."

Draco turned briefly to his mother, who had hardly moved, but had her eyes closed now, a different, more tiresome sort of defeat now showing in her face. "Where are we going?" Draco asked.

"I'll tell you when we get outside and on the move." Lucius turned his head in frustration, but the room remained still and silent. "Narcissa, do you hear what I'm saying?"

Draco's mother opened her eyes and looked calmly and steadily at her husband. "I hear you," she said.

"Well we don't have much time, we have to go." Narcissa opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. "Did you hear what I said? We have to go. Are you coming or not?" he demanded.

She pursed her lips, holding the room hostage in anticipation longer than Draco thought possible before gradually standing up and whispering "I'm coming."

Lucius nodded collectedly and Draco's mother and father walked across the room together.

Still Draco stood back though, realizing he was determined to remain where he was, still thinking that he would either live or die right here, without any more of his father's expectations or requirements, which he knew would only end in pain for everybody.

At the end of the room his father stopped and turned to face him. "Draco?" he asked smoothly. Draco's eyes widened, because in his father's voice, unlike almost any other time his father had spoken to him before, perhaps because of how closely everyone had come to death that day, perhaps because You-Know-Who's shadow was finally gone from the world, perhaps because at-long-last, or more likely just for this instant, his father finally regarded him as an equal, Draco saw that he was being given a choice. He could shake his head no right now and his parents would walk out the door without protest, without admonishing him or telling him he was acting like a foolish, immature child.

He lingered as long as he could between moments, endless choices and questions running through his head, uncertain of anything anymore. He looked at his father, wondering if there was anything left in this man that he could admire or trust, any reason to follow him at all. It would, after all, be for his benefit that they were leaving; he had the most to lose from staying here. He looked at his mother, knowing he loved her, that he couldn't let her disappear forever while he himself stayed behind alone, the only Malfoy alive in Britain.

He swallowed, and though he was unaware of any message being sent from his brain down to his leg, he took a long, heavy step. That step turned into a series of quicker steps, and soon he found himself across the room next to his parents. Then he followed them out the front door and down the flagstone pathway leading west across the countryside.

The light was all but gone by this point, and as the Malfoy family walked out the gate, the giant house behind them was dark as well, not a single light left illuminated in the old residence. The trio stood together and looked back, the silhouette of the roof and chimneys barely discernible any longer. Then Lucius Malfoy put his hands on the shoulders of his wife and son and disapparated, leaving behind Malfoy manor forever.


	2. The Flight

Chapter 2: The Flight

They apparated all over Britain, pockmarking the map with their appearances and disappearances in every county from Gloucestershire to Cumberland to Kent. If whatever remaining residue of the ministry came looking for them, they would find their presence all over, but their route would be unclear.

By midnight Draco thought his father might collapse, but finally they made it to a small field on the south eastern coast of England where preparations had long since been made in the case of an emergency like the one they were currently facing.

Lucius led them down a pebble path to a small cove where a rowboat sat growing moss in the shadows. He looked it over, then beckoned Draco across to him.

"Help me get this into the water," he said, nodding towards the waves rolling against the rocks.

Draco shook his head. "I don't have a wand. Potter stole it from me."

Lucius glared at him. "Saves me the trouble of breaking it then. No more magic until we get out of the country, and if you're stupid enough to use a wand somebody can trace back to us, I'll throw you into the bloody ocean."

Draco bristled under his father's words, already second-guessing the purported benefits of this last-gasp attempt to escape. "Alright," he said. "So we're going to push this?"

Lucius nodded, and the two of them bent over and started moving the boat across the uneven ground and towards the edge of the dark sea.

"So when is it that we'll be out of the country?" Draco panted. "Is it just as soon as we get into the water or what?"

"The ministry of magic's jurisdiction extends eleven-and-one-third miles off the coast of Britain. Anything further than that and they can't do anything to you legally, which hasn't stopped them before, but with the current state of things we'll have to hope they don't have enough organization for that kind of thing yet."

Draco froze. "Eleven-and-one-third miles? And we have to row that far?"

His father turned angrily, eyes wide and lips sewn into a menacing snarl. "Eleven-and-one-third miles. And we'll row every damn inch if we want to stay alive. Now pick up your end of the boat; you can remind me later why I decided to bring you along despite your incessant whining and ignorance."

Draco turned momentarily towards his mother, but found only an icy stare that didn't reveal a person totally aware of her surroundings. So he turned back to the boat and lifted it the rest of the way into the water, climbed in, and grabbed the oars. Lucius stepped carefully in after him and his mother followed. Then Draco started rowing hard, heaving his back against the water as quickly as he could.

His father watched him for about fifteen strokes before interjecting. "You're going to have to row more gradually than that if you want to last very long."

His voice was still cold, but he meant it as advice, so Draco mumbled understanding and slowed down. The moon was a crescent, and when he took the time to look around, the silver reflecting in the water was actually rather beautiful.

After a couple hours, when the sky was starting to get light again, Draco stopped rowing, his hands blistered and cold and his torso and feet soaked with water that had splashed over the side of the boat. "I can't go any longer," he said, and his father stood up to change places with him, and his mother watched them both in silence.

Draco leaned against the back of the boat as his father grabbed the oars and they started moving again. He felt sick to his stomach, and his hands were shaking either from fatigue or cold. He closed his eyes, and as his breathing slowed and returned to normal he fell asleep.

When he woke up they were moving much faster, making their way across the gray sea towards a hazy coastline. He looked up groggily and saw what seemed to be a familiar face on an otherwise unfamiliar head. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and his father came into focus.

Except, it wasn't quite his father. The long, white hair that once flowed down his back had turned black and been reduced to a neat, business-like coiffure. The man returned his son's gaze grimly, none to pleased himself at the premiere of his first new hairstyle in what must have been over a decade, ever since Draco could remember.

The son propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. Except for that far-off coastline, there wasn't much to see. He glanced at his mother at the back of the boat, where she seemed to be asleep, then turned back.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"We're approaching the coast of France."

"And where are we going then?"

"We'll meet up with some connections I've made near Calais. We should be able to get our bearings here without too much trouble from any sort of authorities."

"We're not staying in France, are we?"

"Don't be so daft. Of course we're not staying in France. I said we'll get our bearings, but we have to clear out by tomorrow at the latest."

Draco settled in, happy to see the boat moving on its own accord at last. "Well thank the stars for that. I wouldn't want to deal with the people in this country for very long."

Lucius made a face somewhere between disgust and amusement, then turned towards the quickly approaching shore.

They stopped the boat in a rocky cove well hidden by cliffs, then woke up Draco's mother and made their way up with only minimal assistance from magic. They found themselves in a countryside about fifteen kilometers south of Calais, in appearance not any different from one you could find in much of England.

Lucius seemed to know his way around pretty well, so off they marched through the fields, following roads when necessary but keeping out of sight as well as they were able. After a couple hours of walking, a large house, not quite able to call itself a chateau, appeared on the other side of a hill. Lucius nodded to himself and started walking faster in that direction.

Atop a hill fifty meters from the house he stopped and told Draco and Narcissa to wait behind. He approached the large home and rapped on the front door. After a brief wait on the front stoop he knocked again. He walked to the side of the house, trying to peer through the windows to see if anybody was home. Then the front door opened up, and he hurried back to meet the inhabitant. The two engaged in a short conversation, then disappeared inside.

Draco stood against a chestnut tree. It was still the early morning, but he could tell that it was going to be a hot day. The surrounding landscape consisted of some farms, a few apple orchards, and from its distinctive deep purple, what must have been a field of lavender.

He slid down onto the ground, deciding that his father's discussion inside might take awhile. His mother still stood outside the shadow the tree, staring into the distance. Draco furrowed his brow; her silence was not necessarily strange, but something about her actions seemed odd, even considering recent events.

"You can come sit down in the shade here, Mother." She didn't respond. "Mother, are you alright?" Still nothing, so Draco heaved himself up and walked over to her. He grabbed her on the shoulder, then put his face right in front of hers and looked into her eyes. She didn't even register his presence.

Draco turned away in disgust, suddenly comprehending what was happening. He kicked the tree he was just sitting against furiously, hard enough that a chestnut fell out of its branches and landed on his head. He yelped loudly in surprise, and as he rubbed the spot where he had been struck the door to the house below clanged shut and Lucius walked up the hill towards them.

As he strode forward, Draco went out to meet him.

His father started "It's all worked out. We'll go from here to-"

"Did you put an imperius curse on Mother?" Draco demanded.

Lucius regarded his son somewhat annoyed but still relatively unconcerned. "I think under the present circumstances that isn't worth discussion."

Draco fumed silently, and almost let it stand at that. But then he realized that to him, this was certainly worth discussion, that this would be something worth discussion to almost anybody except Lucius Malfoy. So he took a risk and opened his mouth when he would not have dared do so most of his previous 17 years. "You should have let her make that decision herself."

Lucius whirled around, now truly angry. "Remember who you're speaking to, boy. Your mother is also my wife, and I have every right to make her accompany me when I go someplace whether she wants to or not. And it just so happens that in this instance I saved her skin. So get that into your bloody head, and start acting damn grateful about it."

Draco sulked back angrily. He wasn't going to tell him what his mother had said about saving Potter, so he just decided to say nothing at all. His father scowled and continued from where he had been cut off before.

"We'll be taking the floo across Europe. We can't use it to cross any borders, but we should make it to Albania relatively easily, where we can get something to fly from there."

Draco really wanted to know where they were going, but wasn't sure if he could risk asking it. He decided it could wait, so he just nodded his understanding and they started off.

They did not turn east towards the house Lucius had just visited, but south, through what felt like a dozen different apple orchards until they got to a tiny hut and walked inside. Draco figured that this must be some sort of unregistered fireplace that couldn't be traced back to the people they had just visited.

He waited in front of the fireplace as his father extracted a small pouch containing the floo powder. He handed a pinch to Draco, the placed some in Narcissa's hand. "We're going to Briançon, make sure you pronounce it correctly." Then both his parents stepped into the fireplace, said the magic word, and disappeared.

Draco waited a few seconds for the person ahead of him to get out of the way, then tossed the powder into the flames which soon turned green. He clearly spoke the name "Briançon," then stepped in.

He whirled through the chimney, traveling from one corner of France to the other at a truly dizzying pace. Draco was glad he had gotten used to this feeling long ago, as this was the longest time he had ever spent in the chimney system.

At last he arrived and staggered out, barely able to stay on his feet. His parents stood waiting for him near the hearth, facing a short, old woman he had never met before.

His father glanced backwards as he came tumbling out. "Draco, this is an old friend of mine. It would be best if you don't know her name."

Draco nodded and opened his mouth in an attempt to say hello, but instead started coughing from all the ash he had inhaled. The woman just grunted and walked outside.

They found themselves outside a cabin on a steep mountain slope. A tiny path ran down the side, and they all started down. The ground was uneven and rocks slipped underneath Draco's feet as he tried to carefully descend the mountainside. He fell behind, wondering how such a small, old woman could navigate these treacherous hills with such dexterity.

It wasn't until they stopped at a stream to rest and drink some water that Draco realized how hungry he was. He hadn't eaten in a full 24 hours, under vastly different circumstances than the present. He decided that he wouldn't be the one to bring up food though; if his dad could bear the hunger, he would have to pretend that he could as well.

He had arrived at the stream later than anyone else, so no sooner had he taken his first drink of the cool water than they were off again. He berated the old woman at the unfairness of the situation in his head then followed her across the stream.

On the other side she turned to them and said with a light French accent "We are in Italy now." Soon after arriving in Italy they arrived at another cabin in the mountains.

They parted ways with the old woman, and Draco watched both his parents say "Brindisi" before stepping into the fire. Again he waited to give them time to arrive, then mimicked their actions and walked in himself.

When he arrived in the other fireplace this time, he took a step forward and tripped over the unconscious body of his mother.

As he fell, a red spell flew over his head, crashing into the grate where he had just stood and causing a few bricks to come tumbling down the chimney.

He jerked his head up and saw two more unconscious bodies lying on the ground in front of him. Behind those bodies stood a pale man pointing a wand directly at him. Draco rolled over to his left just as another spell came whizzing by.

He reached for his wand instinctively, but found again that he didn't have it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother's wand lying on the floor, and he dived in that direction. He grabbed it just in time to conjure a shield charm that blocked yet another spell from his adversary.

He stood up, pointed the wand across the room, and yelled "Stupefy!" The man blocked the charm and took a step to his left.

As the enemy raised his arm to send another spell at Draco, Lucius stood up from behind an overturned table and said in a loud, clear voice "Avada Kedavra!" The green bolt shot from his wand and struck the man in his midriff. His arm went limp at his side and he fell to the ground dead.

Lucius stepped over to the body. "Draco, this is another one of my old friends, who apparently isn't much of a friend any more."

He spit on the corpse then walked to the body of his wife. He crouched beside her and whispered "Rennervate."

She moved slightly and opened her eyes, dizzy from the effects of either the stunning spell or the imperius curse. She managed to prop herself onto her elbows and ask "Where am I?"

Lucius looked straight into her eyes as he answered. "We're in southern Italy. We just left England and have decided to go stay at your cousin's with our son Draco."

She looked around the room until she found her son, then breathed a sigh of relief and sat all the way up. "How did I get here?" she asked.

Her husband took a moment to answer this question. "You seemed to be taking a long time in your agreement to accompany us, so I coaxed you into it. You might not remember everything."

Draco rolled his eyes at his father's choice of words. He walked over to his mother and handed her her wand. She rolled it over in her hand, then put it in her pocket and stood up. She saw the three bodies in the room and took a step back, but decided not to address this situation right away. Instead she said "I assume by my cousin you mean Cassius?"

"He's the only cousin of yours I know of that's still alive."

"I haven't spoken to him in years, who knows if he's alive? He might be gone by now, as well."

Lucius shook his head. "I spoke with him earlier. He said he'll take us in."

Narcissa held still for a few seconds then nodded and walked to the nearest dead body. She picked up the man's wand and handed it to Draco. "You need a wand, right?"

He took it, judging its weight and balance. Content, he pocketed it, then looked to his parents for more information. Neither spoke, but just started walking out the door, so he interjected "Where are we going then?"

Lucius turned to reply, drawing out the pause before he spoke in an attempt to demonstrate his frustration. But before he opened his mouth Narcissa answered instead. "Apparently we're visiting my cousin. You've never met him; he lives in India."

Then she walked out the door with her husband, leaving Draco by himself blinking in surprise. "India?" he asked. None of the corpses answered him, so he went outside to look for somebody who could tell him what was going on.


	3. The Flight Part 2

The Flight Part 2:

As his parents stood discussing something with yet another stranger near a broken-down boardwalk, Draco sat down on the beach next to a glassy tide pool, within which the sun and clouds drifted carefully past. He looked inside and saw his dirty face, black soot marks still running down his cheeks from the Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement. When his father changed his appearance earlier, Draco wondered briefly why he wasn't asked to do the same. Now he knew that he could hardly even recognize his own reflection.

He dipped his hand into the pool and sent waves rippling out from the tip of his nose. He splashed some of the water on his face, trying to clean up as best he could. The cool liquid felt nice, and when he touched the back of his neck he realized he was beginning to sunburn.

He took out his new wand, about 9 ½ inches long, made of olive wood. It felt a little stiff for his liking, but otherwise it fit his grasp rather nicely. He pointed it at a hermit crab crawling across the ground and tried vanishing it. It seemed to work well, leaving the creature's claw marks on the dry sand as its only sign of existence.

He pointed the wand at his neck and cast a charm used to prevent sunburn. Its cooling effect arrived immediately, and Draco touched his hand to the healing skin in relief.

The world around him at that moment seemed to be in a state of perfect tranquility. Before him the calm sea, colored a deep, hypnotic blue with waves that only gently lapped against the shore. Above, the sky was almost as blue as the sea, empty except for a few low hanging clouds that blew leisurely by. And in either direction stretched the beach, white except for the odd speck of sand that sparkled when the sun hit it just right.

His peace was interrupted by the shout of his name from up the beach where his parents stood watching him. He grumbled, got to his feet, brushed the sand off his thighs, and walked over to discover what he could possibly be expected to do next.

"Hurry up, Draco!" his mother called as he came close.

Well, he needn't have defended the woman to his father too badly, he thought to himself. She seemed to be going right along with the planned course of action now. She had appeared so totally finished only the day before. He couldn't have imagined the quick turn around, but apparently she snapped out of it. Or was snapped out of it. At this point, he couldn't bother paying too much attention to what was going on between his parents; it could only give him a headache.

The stranger was gone now, but they seemed to be waiting here for him.

"We've managed to buy broomsticks here," Lucius said. "Once we get across the Adriatic we might be able to rest."

They all turned to see the stranger coming back carrying three broomsticks. He held them back and motioned for money.

Lucius shook his head. "You can't really think I'm going to pay you without even knowing how well these things fly," he said.

The man cocked his head questioningly.

"Show us if these work," Draco's father simplified.

The man nodded understandingly and held out two of the broomsticks. "You take the two here. I take fastest one, so you no run away."

Lucius grabbed one of the brooms and handed the other to his son. "That's your fastest broom?" Draco asked incredulously. "A Cleansweep Five?"

The man nodded, but Draco didn't think he understood.

He looked down at his own broom, not quite sure what it was. It looked like it could be an old Swiftstick, except the handle was shorter. Probably a foreign knock-off, he decided. Or maybe it was broken off at some point. He didn't like thinking about the effects that could have on its flying.

The three men mounted their broomsticks and took off. The foreign man led the way, gradually ascending in circles over the sea. Draco's broom started wobbling as soon as he took flight, and as they got higher it became almost violent. Luckily, they began their descent soon enough and landed on the ground next to Mother.

The foreigner dismounted and smiled at them. "Is good. Now you buy?"

"They're not good, no," Draco's father responded. "But we'll buy them."

Draco longed for his Nimbus 2001 as they made the exchange. Because of the situation they had to overpay for the brooms, which was still not much considering they were hardly worth the wood they were made out of. His father took the Cleansweep, his mother took the broom his father had been riding, and Draco was left with the mystery broom. He never imagined that he would find himself in a situation envying somebody riding a Cleansweep Five. That thing ought to be sold to a museum, he thought, chuckling quietly at his own quip.

"Are you laughing at something?" his father asked.

"It's nothing," Draco replied sullenly.

"Are you ready to go then?" he questioned again.

Draco nodded.

The foreigner had walked away, quite pleased with the money he had gotten out of the deal. He turned wearily towards his broom and climbed onto it. He looked to his right and his mother lifted off into the air, testing her vehicle as she rose steadily upwards. He looked to his left where his father watched him, waiting.

"Are you going to go or would you prefer to follow behind?" he man asked.

Draco shrugged. "Sure, I'll go. I don't mind which order we travel in."

He kicked off into the air and started flying in the general direction of his mother, except choosing to stay a bit lower. He decided that this could be tolerable if he didn't fly too high, just him soaring through the air with a broom and his thoughts.

"If you don't want every Muggle, let alone wizard, crossing the sea to notice you right now then I recommend flying a bit higher," his father's voice cut in. "And set a ruddy disillusionment charm on yourself. I thought you were at least smarter than that."

Draco grumbled and kicked his broom up a hundred feet, his wobbling becoming precarious at this point. He still wasn't comfortable with his new wand, but he managed the spell well enough. Apparently this wouldn't be as comfortable a journey as he would like, so he made his mind go numb and tried to find something that could hold his interest around him. It wasn't really all that different from a Care of Magical Creatures class.

Still, he thought. At least there weren't any flobberworms two hundred feet in the sky.

After a couple more hours in the air they arrived at a lagoon on the Albanian coast. They flew down with a flock of large pelicans and landed near a group of pine trees. Everyone hopped off and looked around. It was still early, the sun high in the center of the sky, which accounted for the lack of mosquitoes.

"Why are we landing?" Draco asked.

"This is not a particularly stable region right now," Lucius said. "Air traffic is heavily monitored, and we don't want to be caught by the wrong people."

"So are we going to walk?" Draco wasn't sure how far across Albania was, but he knew it was a lot farther than he wanted to walk.

"If you insist upon talking, at least find it in yourself not to ask such mindless questions. We'll be taking a portkey. I just have to figure this out."

Draco didn't much fancy portkeys, but he watched patiently as his father took a silver candlestick out of his pocket and began examining it. He recognized it from the dining room table. Apparently his father had snatched it before they left. He wondered if this had really all been planned out from the beginning; it seemed somehow less organized than that.

But Lucius seemed to have everything under control as he collected his thoughts, pointed his wand at the candlestick, and spoke clearly the word "Portus." He nodded and looked up from his work. "It's timed to start in two minutes. Let's gather around."

The three Malfoys circled around the object and each put a finger on top. Draco really wasn't sure why they had to be taking a portkey, but he took it for granted that his father knew more about this kind of thing than he did. He used to always assume that his father knew more about everything than him, but over the last couple years the man had begun to appear more and more ignorant.

As they waited silently for the time to come, a gust of wind swept through the trees, causing Draco to shiver. He wondered how warm it was in India at this time of year. He was fairly certain they had a hotter climate than most of Great Britain, but he hoped it wouldn't get too scorching. One thing he could count on at Hogwarts was the cool year round temperature, especially in the Slytherin dungeon. That was something that most students couldn't appreciate like him.

All of a sudden Draco felt his finger attach itself to the candlestick so that he couldn't pull away if he tried, and the familiar but never pleasant sensation as if someone was pulling roughly on the back of his collar arrived just before the trees and lagoon around him disappeared.

The portkey whisked him violently towards his destination, the invisible hand holding on to his neck jerking him along without any regard for his well-being. He thought the floo ride was unusually long, but he could actually feel himself getting sick as he travelled, with no respite from the nausea that came soon after the usual, nearly-instantaneous portkeys that he was used to.

As soon as he was let go he collapsed to the ground. He looked up and saw even his parents lying in the dirt. They at least stood up, but he could only lie down with his eyes closed and groan, trying to keep from passing out.

"Draco," his mother said. "Stand up."

He managed to hold back some of his dizziness and sit up, and immediately was struck by the heat. Heat like he had only experienced a few times before, comparable in his mind even to the fiendfyre in the room where Crabbe had been killed. He leaned back over to his side and wretched onto the ground.

He spit out the mucus hanging in his mouth and shook his head. His second attempt at standing proved more successful, and he got wobbly to his feet, still partially blinded by the intense sun.

A wide, blooming tree covered in red flowers reached up in the first direction he looked. Its trunk twisted and tied its limbs together in tangled knots, sprouting up in intricate patterns from the dark soil into the unbelievably bright and blue sky. Draco started rapidly towards its shade.

"Draco," his mother stopped him. "This is your cousin Albert."

Draco turned and put his hand up against his brow, squinting in the direction of his mother's voice.

A silhouetted figure that he didn't recognize stood before him, its face and most of its shape blotted out by the light pouring over its bulky shoulders. Nevertheless, it extended its hand stiffly and grunted. "So you're the kid, eh? And your name's Draco? I guess your side of the family always was creative in those kinds of ways. Now let's get inside before somebody dies of bloody heat exhaustion."


End file.
